Obama, top senators to discuss vacancy on high court

President Obama will meet with Senate leaders from both parties next week to discuss the Supreme Court vacancy he must fill, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Judiciary Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., have been invited to the April 21 meeting at the White House, Gibbs said in a statement.

The meeting will be the first of its kind since Justice John Paul Stevens announced he would retire at the end of the court's term, which is likely to end in June. Obama has offered no timetable for announcing his choice, but White House officials and lawmakers expect him to move quickly, with a goal of having the new justice on the bench when the court's new term begins in October.

Hours before the meeting was announced, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., suggested Obama's nominee could run into strong Republican opposition if the president used a recent campaign-finance ruling or any other politically charged topic as a litmus test for determining who to nominate.

Kyl's comments on the Senate floor Tuesday followed reports that Obama might be looking for a justice willing to overturn the Supreme Court's ruling that corporations are permitted to directly fund political campaigns. Stevens dissented in the 5-4 ruling earlier this year, so a like-minded replacement wouldn't necessarily lead to any change.

Still, Kyl said, "You don't go on the bench [saying] 'I'm always going to be against the big guy.'" He did not directly say the GOP would filibuster a nominee, but the comments were in the context of when a filibuster would be justified.